"They Were Butchering People"

by Larry Colburn (2003)

On March 16, 1968, a company of U.S. infantry entered the village of My
Lai, and although they did not receive a single round of hostile
fire, methodically slaughtered some five hundred Vietnamese peasants,
mostly women and children. The freelance journalist Seymour Hersh
heard the story, but the major media ignored his efforts to publicize
it. Finally, in December 1969 Life magazine carried Ronald Haeberle's
horrendous photos of GIs pouring automatic rifle fire into trenches
where Vietnamese women, babies in their arms, crouched in fear. The
military arrested Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader at My
Lai, who had ordered the shootings. Many officers were involved in
the incident and then the cover-up, however, only Calley received a
jail sentence. His life sentence was diminished to five years by the
intervention of President Nixon. He served three and a half years
under house arrest and was then released. In the following
recollection1, Larry Colburn, a helicopter door-gunner, who, with his
pilot, Hugh Thompson, came upon the scene and stopped some of the
killing, tells his story.

From Voices of A People's History, edited by Zinn and Arnove

We weren't pacifists. We did our job and when we had to kill people we
did. But we didn't do it for sport. We didn't randomly shoot people.
In our gun company it was very important to capture weapons, not just
to legitimize your kill, but psychologically it was easier when you
could say, "If I didn't do that, he was going to shoot me."

We flew an OH-23—a little gasoline-engine bubble helicopter. We
were aerial scouts—a new concept. Instead of just sending
assault helicopters they'd use our small aircraft as bait and have a
couple gunships cover us. Basically we'd go out and cry to get into
trouble. We'd fly real low and if we encountered anything we'd mark
it with smoke, return fire, and let the gunships work out. We also
went on "snatch missions," kidnapping draft-age males to
take back for interrogation. We did that a lot in 1968.

On March 16, we came on station a little after seven a.m. The only
briefing I got was that they were going to put a company on the
ground to sweep through this village. Normally we'd go in beforehand
to see if we could find enemy positions or entice people to shoot at
us. It was clear and warm and the fog was lifting off the rice
paddies. On our first pass we saw a man in uniform carrying a carbine
and a pack coming out of a tree line. Thompson said, "Who wants
him?" I said, "I'll take him." So he aimed the
aircraft at him and got it down low and started toward the suspect.
He was obviously Viet Cong. He was armed, evading, and heading for
the next tree line. I couldn't hit him to save my life. We worked
that area a little more but that was the only armed Vietnamese I saw
that day.

After that we just started working the perimeter of My Lai—4, —5,
and —6 and I remember seeing the American troops come in on
slicks [helicopters]. We got ahead of them to see if they were going
to encounter anything and we still didn't receive any fire. It was
market day and we saw a lot of women and children leaving the hamlet.
They were moving down the road carrying empty baskets. As we went
further around the perimeter we saw a few wounded women in the rice
fields south of My Lai—4. We marked their bodies with smoke
grenades expecting that medics would give them medical assistance.

When we came back to the road we started seeing bodies, the same people
that were walking to the market. They hadn't even gotten off the
road. They were in piles, dead. We started going through all the
scenarios of what might have happened. Was it artillery? Gunships?
Viet Cong? The American soldiers on the ground were just walking
around in a real nonchalant sweep. No one was crouching, ducking, or
hiding.

Then
we saw a young girl about twenty years old lying on the grass. We
could see that she was unarmed and wounded in the chest. We marked
her with smoke because we saw a squad not too far away. The smoke was
green, meaning it's safe to approach. Red would have meant the
opposite. We were hovering six feet off the ground not more than
twenty feet away when Captain [Ernest] Medina came over, kicked her,
stepped back, and finished her off. He did it right in front of us.
When we saw Medina do that, it clicked. It was our guys doing the
killing.

The bodies we marked with smoke—you find yourself feeling that you
indirectly killed them. I'll never forget one lady who was hiding in
the grass. She was crouched in a fetal position. I motioned to
her—stay down, be quiet, stay there. We flew off on more
reconnaissance. We came back later and she was in the same position,
right where I'd told her to stay. But someone had come up behind her
and literally blew her brains out. I'll never forget that look of
bewilderment on her face.

Photo taken by United States Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle on March 16, 1968 in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre showing mostly women and children dead on a road.

Around ten a.m. [Hugh] Thompson spotted a group of women and children
running toward a bunker northeast of My Lai—4 followed by a
group of U.S. soldiers. When we got overhead, [Glenn] Andreotta
spotted some faces peeking out of an earthen bunker. Thompson knew
that in a matter of seconds they were going to die, so he landed the
aircraft in between the advancing American troops and the bunker. He
went over and talked to a Lieutenant [Stephen] Brooks. Thompson said,
"These are civilians. How do we get them out of the bunker?"
Brooks said, "I'll get them out with hand grenades." The
veins were sticking out on Thompsons neck and I thought they were
actually going to fight. Thompson came back and said to Andreotta and
me, "If they open up on these people when I'm getting them out
of the bunker, shoot 'em." Then he walked away leaving us
standing there looking at each other. Thompson went over to the
bunker and motioned for the people to come out. There were nine or
ten of them.

We had a staredown going with the American soldiers. About half of them
were sitting down, smoking and joking. I remember looking at one
fellow and waving. He waved back and that's when I knew we were okay,
that these guys weren't doing anything to us. No one pointed weapons
at us and we didn't point any weapons at them.

Thompson called Dan Millians, a gunship pilot friend of his, and said, "Danny,
I've got a little problem down here, can you help out?" Millians said
sure and did something unheard of. You don't land a gunship to use it
as a medevac, but he did. He got those people a couple of miles away
and let 'em go. I think he had to make two trips.

We flew over the ditch where more than a hundred Vietnamese had been
killed. Andreotta saw movement so Thompson landed again. Andreotta
went directly into that ditch. He literally had to wade waist deep
through people to get to a little child. I stood there in the open.
Glenn came over and handed me the child, but the ditch was so full of
bodies and blood he couldn't get out. I gave him the butt of my rifle
and pulled him out. We took the little one to an orphanage. We didn't
know if he was a little boy or little girl. Just a cute little child.
I felt for broken bones or bullet holes and he appeared to be fine.
He wasn't crying, but he had this blank stare on his face and he was
covered with blood.

The only thing I remember feeling back then was that these guys were
really out for revenge. They'd lost men to booby traps and snipers
and they were ready to engage. They were briefed the night before and
I've heard it said that they were going in there to waste everything.
They didn't capture any weapons. They didn't kill any draft-age
males. I've seen the list of dead and there were a hundred and twenty
some humans under the age of five. It's something I've struggled with
my whole adult life, how people can do that. I know what it's like to
seek revenge, but we would look for a worthy opponent. These were
elders, mothers, children, and babies. The fact that the VC [Viet
Cong] camped out there at night is no justification for killing
everyone in the hamlet.

Compare it to a little town in the United States. We're at war with someone on
our own soil. They come into a town and rape the women, kill the
babies, kill everyone. How would we feel? And it wasn't just
murdering civilians. They were butchering people. The only thing they
didn't do is cook 'em and eat 'em. How do you get that far over the
edge?